SANTA CRUZ >> People move to Santa Cruz every day, but when someone like Cecile Andrews moves here, well, it’s a telling reflection of the city’s reputation.

A Stanford-educated former college administrator and an author of several books, Cecile has devoted her life to the idea and practice of community. And when the time came for the Seattle native and her husband Paul to escape the dismal Northwest winters, they settled for a while in Palo Alto. But, three years ago, in search of even greener pastures, they came to Santa Cruz.

“There is a real celebratory culture here in Santa Cruz,” she said from the condo she shares with Paul and their dog Millie in the new downtown co-housing building Walnut Commons. “I’ve never been in a place where people will stop and chat with you on the street, and have a significant conversation, like they do here.”

Cecile’s latest book is called “Living Room Revolution,” and it is a distillation of her lifelong belief in the power of conversation in small groups as the seed bed for genuine and lasting community. She will outline her ideas at TED-x Santa Cruz on April 24.

For years, Cecile has worked to establish small groups of people to meet regularly and discuss how they can change their lives for the better. Her groups are not therapy, given that they are devoted to social values, but they are not intellectual salons either. Participants are encouraged to talk about their lives and what they’re doing to improve them.

Her inspiration for her work dates back to the days of the Civil Rights movement, when as a young student she traveled to the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee, the place where Rosa Parks was trained in the principles of civil disobedience. It was at Highlander where she learned that meaningful social change happened first in small groups.

“It was a life-changing thing for me,” she said. They would bring people together and just have them talk, talk, talk. No experts or authorities, no trainers. Then they would go out and get involved, after having generated their own ideas.”

She then worked in the women’s movement for many years before striking out in other arenas. An emphasis on the “voluntary simplicity” movement led to a book and “simplicity circles” of people meeting to figure out how to live a more conscious life.

These days, she’s sparking up meetings of young people and meetings of older people on the establishment of an “Elder Culture.”

“John Dewey said, ‘Democracy is born in conversation,’” she said. “Both are give and take, nonviolent, collaborative, and done with respect.”

Idea for a Santa Cruz County Stories subject? Email wbaine@santacruzsentinel.com.